


and now the weather

by Snickfic



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Multi, Pre-OT3, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 04:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21247787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickfic/pseuds/Snickfic
Summary: Steve turned back into a person in the back seat of the Byers’ station wagon.





	and now the weather

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sholio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/gifts).

Steve turned back into a person in the back seat of the Byers’ station wagon. The way his bones shifted under his skin was gross enough that it took Nancy a couple of moments to realize that person-Steve was just as naked as wolf-Steve had been. Also just as wet. 

“Do you have any clothes in here?” Nancy asked Jonathan.

“Clothes?” He glanced in the rearview mirror at wet, naked, miserable-looking Steve, and Nancy saw in the set of his jaw the moment he decided to continue not freaking out. “Uh, there should be a blanket in the back. Remember? That picnic on the bluff?”

They usually didn’t mention those kinds of thing around Steve—the kinds of things that were dates—but Steve looked too cold to notice. He also didn’t look like he was planning to go hunting for a blanket any time soon, and Jonathan was driving, so that left Nancy.

“Oh, uh, hey,” Jonathan said, as Nancy crawled between the front seats. Steve watched her, or at least his eyes followed her movement; he looked dazed, lost, completely out of it. 

“Hey,” Nancy said. She put a hand on his clammy, cold shoulder.

“Hey?” he said. His voice was a rasp, barely even audible. Maybe howling at the moon did that to your voice.

“I’m going to get a blanket,” Nancy said. She gave him a squeeze and reached over the back seat. There: a wool blanket, heavy and prickly with bits of dead grass. She settled back on the bench seat and unfolded it. Then she had to get it around Steve, without much help from him; he mostly just sat there, knees pulled to his chest. 

“I think—” he began, as Nancy tucked in a corner. 

“Yeah?”

“I think I was something else.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. She gave his shoulder another squeeze. This close, it was apparent how much he still smelled like dog. Who knew how that even worked. 

The drive across town seemed to take forever, past bare-branched trees with just a lone yellow leaf clinging to life here and there. There were still a few jack o’ lanterns left rotting on stoops, their teeth and eyes going dark with mold. A heavy, featureless gray sky hung over everything—the kind of sky that should have meant sweaters and fires in fireplaces, not crawling out of rivers barely able to stand, even on four feet. What the _fuck_, Steve.

Steve’s teeth were chattering by the time the station wagon rolled to a stop in front of the Byers house. Will and Mrs. Byers were out of town, visiting an aunt that Will had made faces about; Nancy and Jonathan had been planning to come back here after their patrol, for cocoa and a cuddle on the sofa and the sorts of things that followed a cuddle on the sofa. They’d had plans, but now instead they had Steve.

Jonathan appeared on the other side of Steve. “Come on, buddy. Let’s get you inside. You can have a hot shower.”

Nancy wasn’t confdent Steve could stand up long enough for a shower to do him any good. Trying to get him into the house, it seemed like he might have forgotten how to walk altogether, at least on two legs. Maybe being upright had dislodged some of those other human thoughts, though, because he was starting to look more awake. When the blanket threatened to slip off his shoulder, he nearly fell over grabbing ahold of it again, all while shooting Nancy alarmed glances. Nudity taboo: firmly back in place.

“How about you boys figure out the shower,” Nancy said. 

“I—I could go home,” Steve said, while visibly shivering.

“No, you couldn’t,” Jonathan said. “Come on, bathroom’s this way. Nance, could you find him something to wear?”

Whether he helped Steve down the hall or just manhandled him was probably a matter of interpretation. Nancy watched them go and then went to investigate the murky, uncertain depths of Jonathan’s drawers. She found some things she thought might fit and left them by the bathroom door. “Clothes!” she called through the door. 

“ ‘Kay!” Jonathan said.

Nancy figured they might as well keep the cocoa part of the plan, anyway. She went to the kitchen and started water boiling. Jonathan joined her a few minutes later, his face pink from the bathroom’s heat. “He doing okay?” Nancy asked.

“Yeah. Yeah.” Jonathan wore that expression that, a million years ago, Nancy had thought was a scowl. Now she knew it was his worry face or, occasionally, his definitely-not-freaking-out face. 

“You sure?” she asked.

“Yeah, he wasn’t really up to a shower, so I just got him into the bathtub, got the water on.”

He wasn’t looking at her, and it occurred to Nancy that the flush might be from more than steam. “Jonathan—”

“Steve!” Jonathan said brightly.

Steve was leaning against the doorway. The t-shirt and gym shorts covered him, but they didn’t _fit_. There was a strip of skin between the shirt hem and the waistband, which made the whole thing look like a failed attempt at fashion. Steve, too, was flushed pink, and the moisture had taken some of the height out of his hair. “What are you assholes up to?” he asked. His voice had not recovered.

“Cocoa,” Nancy said. “Here, this is Steve’s,” she said, handing Jonathan a mug. “The couch, right? I’ll bring the rest.” It felt easier, letting Jonathan do the herding. Safer. _He’d_ never dated Steve Harrington for a year and a half. 

That thought was still at the back of her mind when she came into the living room with the other two mugs and found Jonathan carefully tucking Steve into another blanket. Steve was focused on trying not to spill his cocoa, and that left Jonathan free to focus on him. The look on his face was—

Tender. That was the word. 

Nancy waited until he was finished and settled on the couch next to Steve, and then she handed over his cocoa and got herself situated on Steve’s other side. She picked up the remote and began looking through the channels, though it was really too early for anything except the evening news. She just wanted noise, suddenly, something to distract from the sounding of slurping and pained inhales.

“So,” Jonathan said. “We think you’re a werewolf.”

Steve considered that a while, mug held close to his chin. Vapor curled in front of his face, just barely visible. “Huh.”

“We’ll figure out what happened,” Nancy promised.

“Maybe we can stop it happening,” Jonathan added. “Or maybe it was only the one time.”

That seemed optimistic. Nobody in the stories ever stopped being a werewolf. Nancy had other concerns, though. “Why were you in the river?” _That_ wasn’t in any story she’d ever heard of.

Steve stared very hard into his cocoa. “I think I felt too hot. Or just—weird. I don’t know. I felt so weird. It seemed like it’d help.”

The river was running high, swollen on the late autumn rains. Wolf or no, he could have drowned. Nancy could see in Jonathan’s face that he knew it, too. “Maybe next time, just come to one of us, huh? Probably me, I guess. Don’t want to freak out the Wheelers.” He elbowed Steve a little, offering him a grin. “Or the sheriff.”

Steve nodded. He looked freaked, in a blank, half-frozen kind of way, and Nancy supposed there was no help for that. Still, she leaned up and planted a kiss on his cheek, and as she settled back, she caught a glimpse of Jonathan on the other side, wide-eyed and uncertain. There was probably, definitely a conversation they needed to have here soon. She hoped it was a conversation they could include Steve in on, eventually.

But not right this minute. “We’ll figure it out,” she said again, as earnest as she knew how. “Drink your cocoa.”

They watched the local news and the sports replays. When the weather came on, Nancy stole a glance and found Steve conked out cold, slumped against Jonathan’s shoulder. Nancy caught his eye and whispered, “He’s ours.”

After a long, painful pause, Jonathan nodded. That was the hardest part, then. Nancy settled in against Steve and listened to the forecast.

END


End file.
